


the wings of a new dawn

by Anonymous



Category: Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: Almyra (Fire Emblem), Fire Emblem: Three Houses Golden Deer Route, Gen, POV Outsider, Worldbuilding, Wyverns, very very mild allusion to canonical racism
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-20
Updated: 2021-03-20
Packaged: 2021-03-29 02:02:23
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,044
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/30149073
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/
Summary: a look into khalid's growth, as viewed by a wyvern caretaker in almyra
Comments: 1
Kudos: 3
Collections: Worldbuilding Exchange 2021





	the wings of a new dawn

**Author's Note:**

  * For [rimenorreason](https://archiveofourown.org/users/rimenorreason/gifts).



> i think i got a bit carried away with this, but i hope it's to your liking! （*´▽｀*）i've never really had the opportunity to explore something through an outsider's perspective, so pulling that from your likes was really fun! thank you for the opportunity!

The gift of a wyvern mount is a symbol of recognition, and Aisha had seen many unworthy of such. Her father had always been generous, citing strength and willingness to charge into battle as enough qualification to grant hatchlings away like candy. Aisha would never quite hold her tongue on the matter: with how important wyverns were to their people, was it really so respectful to the wyverns themselves to allow their riders such privilege with so little qualification? She would question every now and then, only to be ignored time and time again. The old man was set in his ways just as the elders were, and as Aisha watched over the young wyverns she trained and cared for, she would sigh. 

She wondered when the winds of change would come and rid the land of such stifling tradition.

She’s much older when the king takes on a bride of Fodlan, shaking the traditionalists to their cores. Hisses and whispers of his decision ripple amongst the common folk and elders, and Aisha doesn’t hold back her barking laughter. Good! Good for him! About time something new and unprecedented happened around here! 

She was completely unaware of just how true those words would ring in the future. 

Years go by like petals falling off the trees in autumn. The act of gifting wyverns was her domain now. Her harsh and strict judgements left many unsatisfied and angry—their complaints could be filed with her own wyvern, she’d say, and the old, proud beast wasn’t so friendly towards those with bad attitudes. Infamy followed her name and it suited her just fine; not even the king’s own got handouts—they had to work for the same as any other. Truth be told, she could never really keep track of which brat was his—sometimes she wonders how hard it must be for him in that regard, but he was always a loving sort with a heart too big for his chest, and each of those kids were raised with at least some measure of promise. 

The youngest, however, was more of a mystery than she’d expected.

He’s a flighty and scrappy little thing; she always sees him with scrapes and bruises on his skin, spitting out blood from between his teeth. She watches him fight now and then—like a wild, untamed animal backed into a corner. Never starting, always defending. Why is it always him that she she passes by, rinsing the dirt from his face in the river near the wyvern stables?

When she thinks about it, the answer becomes a bit more obvious. But that’s none of her business. 

The boy is an awkwardly set young thing when he comes to her for a wyvern, limbs long and gangly, voice cracking under simple syllables. She regards him with a raised, curious eye.

“Why?” she asks.

“I want to learn.”

She looks him up and down, treats him like every other that’s come to her before. 

“Why.” She asks again, tone sharp, flat. He doesn’t falter under her presence, those vivid green eyes meeting her head on. Impressive.

“It’s an important part of Almyra, isn’t it? I want to have a chance to experience it, too.” 

Aisha hums. She’s heard the same before, drivel spewed from the lips of those simply wanting to kiss her ass to get their way. But there’s a different sort of determination and stubbornness in this boy, the kind that makes her consider. The kind that he bears with such confidence.

“Your name.” She demands, turning back to the wyvern meal she’s preparing. 

If he’s taken aback by the idea that she’s unaware of a member of the royal family, he doesn’t show it. “It’s Khalid.”

Khalid, huh. She makes a note to remember that as she hoists the wyvern feed into her arms and turns away. She feels his confusion in the air without so much as trying. 

“Follow,” she huffs impatiently. When she hears his stuttering steps behind her, she adds, “And bring the rest of that meal with you.”

* * *

She puts him through hell for months; by the sounds of it, she’s hardly the only one. His mother is a strong willed and hearty woman, cheering her son on from the sidelines as the King himself oversees a sparring session more suited to someone three years Khalid’s senior. Nader, too, doesn’t hold back. She’d feel sorry for the kid at times, run into the ground with exhaustion, but he still meets with her regularly to aid in wyvern care without fail, so she can’t find herself too worried about his limits. Not a word of complaint comes from his mouth—always exceeding her expectations, that one. She’s gotten quite fond of his tenacity and hardworking nature, and even more of his cunning streak and how he manages to find the most efficient ways to meet her challenges, sometimes surprising even her by completing more than his share of work before she can so much as say a word.

Her mind is made up months in advanced.

* * *

“You seem surprised.” Aisha cackles, amused by the expression of shock written all over the young royal’s face. He looks from the wyvern egg to her and back again; she knows what he’s thinking before he can open that mouth of his and sputter something stupid.

“Raise it and prove yourself. Do it well, and it’ll be yours to call your own. Fail, and forfeit the right to fly.” The terms aren’t exactly her standard—there’s a blessing to be had in a wyvern egg, a statement to be made in it being gifted for one’s sixteenth birthday, and the entirety of Almyra can whisper about it for all she cares. “Good enough a challenge for ya?”

He rises to it with no fear, though she can see the hesitation behind the hands that accept the offering. “Accepted,” he says, speaking more formally than she’s ever heard those lips of his manage. She barks in laughter. 

“Don’t go acting like you’re some kind of prince _now_ , kid. You’ve still got a long way to go.”

* * *

The day he stands before his father, the white-scaled wyvern hovering behind him at the ready, Aisha thinks he came quite far indeed. 

The claim to the throne is a challenge, a spectacle for the citizens of Almyra to bear witness to. The Queen oversees the spectacle, eyes keen on both her husband and son. Aisha admires her neutrality, though in the past few years she’s come to appreciate much more about Tiana than she expected. It makes sense, in a way, that Khalid would be cut from the same cloth as she—even from a distance, the determination in Khalid’s eyes is shining and sharp, calculating, and the resemblance between them has never been clearer. 

The King doesn’t question the determination of his heir apparent nor the confident set of Khalid’s shoulders. Instead, in a booming baritone, he asks that which the Almyran people wish to know the answers to.

“What will you do as King?” He tests, his bow and arrow calmly adjusted. Prepared.

“Bring forth a new dawn.” Khalid answers, and Aisha believes his words as true. 

The King must too; he doesn’t bark in laughter or sneer in disdain as he would when presented with greed and insincerity. Instead he acknowledges Khalid with a bare hum and notches his arrow. Khalid mimics the movement. 

“Show me,” the King challenges; Aisha sees that mirroring spark in his eyes as well, and decides that with parents like those, Khalid must have been born for greatness from the start. “Prove to me that your determination is strong enough to lead a country. Prove to the people that they are worth the shedding of your blood and the risk of your life. You’ve done so for Fodlan—you’ve won their war. Now it is time for you to bare yourself here and now, and that you have what it takes to wrest from me the title of King in order to reach your ideals.”

Khalid’s chest echoes the deepness of his inhale, but he does not back down, not for a moment. When he places a hand to his wyvern’s neck, Aisha wonders how much of his nerves hide under the scars of his skin. Without a word, he mounts the wyvern as his father does, signaling his readiness. 

“I will not fail.” The announcement is clear and forward, with no pretty words to decorate it. Aisha’s surprised; perhaps he truly has grown. 

The King greets his words with a flash of teeth, a broad, challenging smile gracing his rugged features. He raises his arm to signal his ready. At Tiana’s look, Khalid does the same.

“Begin!” she calls, and before the sound leaves her mouth in full, the two take to the skies. 

* * *

“You never told me the meaning of one with white scales.” 

Aisha throws a questioning hum over her shoulder before she so much as glances at the newly crowned King of Almyra. He’s dressed for travel—going over to Fodlan, she presumed, to partake in more of those negotiations he’d given an entire speech about shortly after his crowning. 

“You seem to have an awful lot of time on your hands if you can manage to stop by here and bring up legends that’ve been discarded long ago,” she muses. “How did you hear of it?”

“Just did some reading. Found some interesting books tucked away in strange places.”

She doesn’t put it past him, but the casual lilt of his words somehow leads her to believe that there’s more to it, that it was hardly as easy as he made it sound. 

_That part of you hasn’t changed, huh, kid?_ “And? If it’s something you had to scrounge the bowels of some library for, what made you think that I knew of it?” 

“Just a hunch, really.” 

_Bullshit._

Aisha takes pause in her task briefly, pinching the bridge of her nose before letting out a silent sigh through it. Somewhere in the distance, she hears Khalid’s name being shouted. She quirks a brow.

“Running away from responsibility already? It’s hardly been three months.” 

Khalid laughs at that, tilting his head back towards the exasperated calling. “You caught me, you caught me! I stopped by just to kill some time. Terrible, right?” 

That was also bullshit, but at least it made her lips curl in amusement. She takes a glance in the direction of Khalid’s attendants before turning her gaze upwards, catching a glimpse of a familiar wyvern circling in the sky. Telling on its rider, intelligent creature that it was. 

“Would knowing of myths and folklore have changed the course of your path?”

Khalid doesn’t respond for a few long moments. When he does, it’s with a light shake of his head. 

“Not at all.” 

The answer was an expected one—he had always been too sound of mind and spirit to be shaken by tales of prophecies and greatness granted to the one to tame a beast bearing a hide of snow. A myth so long forgotten that hardly any of the elders think much of it to this day.

Unless they happened to love wyverns and all that they represented, that is. 

“Then get out of here. That new dawn you promised isn’t going to bring itself over.”

He pauses as if mulling something over in that ever-calculating head of his, debating words on that silver tongue before simply letting them go with a resigned smile and a wave as he begins to take his leave. As he does, his wyvern swoops down low enough that its wings whip up a breeze to disturb her hair and garb in a way that Aisha interprets as a greeting. She watches with amused fondness as it lands and Khalid hops astride it, giving a salute in her direction just before they take off, heading towards the mountain border. If the galloping sounds of his attendants rushing to catch up to him are of any indication, it was hardly the agreed upon method of travel.

Aisha laughs, a hearty and barking sort of sound. It had always been things like that that had made him more interesting than the rest.


End file.
